Star Wars: The Page Story
by willumNernie
Summary: This is a story following a plot prequisiting Star Wars Episode IV.


Sergeant Garton Page crouched behind a piece of rubble and watched the scene around him go straight to hell. The mission had started as a simple attack on an Imperial outpost. The point at which the situation had started to go out of control was when they discovered in the worst of ways that the base had twice the number of troops it was supposed to--they had obviously attacked the middle of a troop rotation ---and an Ubbrican HAV A- 19 floating fortress. The Imperial had now suffered roughly ten percent man and vehicle losses while Page's group had sustained fifty. The only thing that had gone right so far was that the base's fighters had been successfully sabotaged.  
In short, things did not look good.  
They had lost six of their nine a-kc freerunner assault vehicles and roughly one fourth of their two hundred infantry. No stormtroopers had yet shown up; that was good, but they were still badly outnumbered. It had been like this for months here on Raltiir, Page thought. Nothing but pointless hit-and-run attacks on Imperial installations all over the planet. At least General Brinnam had finally joined a larger group. They called themselves the "rebel alliance" and had had some huge victory a little over a month ago at someplace called Yavin. A heavy blaster bolt striking the rubble in front of him snapped him back into reality and reminded him that there was no time for thought. He sighted along his rifle--a new BlasTech AD-240--and fired off a few shots at a pair of speeder bikes, hitting the engine cowling of one. Several bursts of green laser fire streaked out of the sky in pairs to skewer one of the remaining freerunners. These were followed by sonic booms and the telltale whine forever associated with Tie Fighters. Page then looked up and, with enough dismay for ten, noticed that a quartet of the ubiquitous fighters was leading a pair of troopships down onto a landing field. Even worse, a pair of Corellian Corvettes was following. Right about then, three things happened at once. First off, the corvettes opened up on the landing craft and AT-STs with precision bursts of turbolaser fire. Second, one of the corvettes launched eight Y-wing fighters out of its bow hold which proceeded to quickly cut the Ties to shreds. Lastly, most everyone on the battlefield noticed the Rebel insignia just aft of the bridge of each corvette. As the large ships attacked, one of them landed and let down a boarding ramp, while still acting as a fixed heavy emplacement. Suddenly, the cry of almost every officer on the field could be heard shouting, "Everyone, get to the transport now!", or something similar. As that one started to load troops, the other, along with its bombers, began to set those slaying walls and strafing troops. As he looked back to make sure that no one from his squad was left, Page saw the floating fortress take four proton torpedoes just aft of its port double laser turret and burst into a cloud of flaming wreckage. The corvettes then rose and started their race for orbit, Y-wings flying cover. As they reached orbit, evidence of a battle began to appear before them. In the near distance, the wreckage of lancer frigate and Randilli light corvettes spun crazily with escape pods littering the area. Farther off, an escort frigate with rebel markings along with its two squadrons of Z-95 headhunters dueled with a carrack cruiser. The carrack, while more heavily armed, had no fighter support and began to retreat behind a moon. The escape vector now clear, the frigate turned and began to make its own run to light speed, fighters streaming into its bays. Five minutes later, it was all over. The Rebel ships were safely away in hyperspace, and an Imperial Star Destroyer had arrived to "keep the peace." The Raltiir Rebels were heading for the world of the alliance headquarters, or, more specifically, the moon. They were heading for Commeneor's mining moon, Follor.  
  
* * *  
  
Admiral Herrinic Fallins paced the bridge of his star destroyer, the Kuat Spirit, as it orbited the world of Raltiir. One destroyer had proved insufficient, so he had brought in two of the Imperial-class ships and one Victory. Frequent attempts to get past the flotilla (it must be said with some success) by the rebels on the ground had also warranted a fleet carrier and one of the only two interdictor cruisers in his fleet. So far the most catches had belonged to Captain Skidder of the Constrainer--the interdictor--and Captain Zinj of the Iron Fist-- the Victory Star Destroyer. He was impressed by Zinj more than Skidder because while Skidder was merely capitalizing on the capabilities of his vessel, Zinj was overcoming the shortcomings of his. The admiral was not pleased with General Maidine; the man had been far too lenient with the rebels and seemed to have minor sympathies as well. For some reason, they had gotten deeper after media reports that a rebel group had destroyed Alderaan. General Harral was thus being moved to Raltiir while Fallins would take Maidine to Commeneor where there were plenty of other generals. The rebels had been causing a good deal of trouble around Follor. The comm. officer called from the crew pit, "Sir! We have a message coming in by hypercomm! Not government or military. It's coded and on your personal frequency." Harral took a quick look to confirm what he saw and then nodded. "I'll take it in my quarters. Lieutenant Stugen, you have the bridge." Once Harral got to his quarters, he locked his door, activated his bug countermeasures interference field, and keyed in his personal frequency. He then entered the decrypt key he and the person on the other end had agreed to--the serial number of the latest Kuat-built star destroyer--and found himself face to face with Prince Xizor, leader of Black Sun, the farthest reaching criminal syndicate in the galaxy. "Hello my lord. How are things going in escalating me in the eyes of the Emperor?" "Very well, considering. Now, onto more important business." 


End file.
